Yes, that is an All-Terrain Armored Transport (ATAT) lumbering through the Colosseum! The gladiators of the Rebel Alliance have left their mark on this vehicle, but have not prevented it from taking center stage!
I enjoy collecting custom creations of this ilk, especially those from the fertile mind of Richard Page of umetoys. As I received this ATAT graffiti on Thursday, I immediately saw an opportunity to photograph it in my Lego Colosseum.
Do you have items that you collect and pose in unusual situations? It’s fun isn’t it? Have a great weekend!
Just because I was on a photography trip doesn’t mean that I don’t take some iPhone shots. Here’s one from this week…
Joshua Trees at Gold Butte
On Wednesday afternoon we took a detour from Valley of Fire State Park to go to Gold Butte National Monument in Mesquite, Nevada. Due to recent rainfall the Joshua trees in this area look phenomenal and these here were among the tallest and healthiest of the bunch!
Captured with the iPhone 14 Pro Max in Raw mode. Thus far, I’m really pleased with the image quality of this phone.
A special post this week as I took the plunge to the latest and greatest iPhone released and acquired an iPhone 14 Pro Max (in Deep Purple). If you’re a frequent mobile phone photographer, like me, it’s always nice to verify that the restore part of the backup/restore process works.
When I checked my albums, I came across this fun shot…
Brit Floyd at the Hanover in Worcester, MA
This photo was from the last concert that I attended pre-pandemic; it was Brit Floyd at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester, MA, on March 11, 2020. Brit Floyd shows are always amazing and you can see that the experience is both sound and vision!
Last week’s entry was all about highlighting structure, as only Nature can create. This week’s image is all about what humans create…
Royal Albert Dock Waterfront
This image is from my 2019 visit to the wonderful city of Liverpool, England. When I get a chance, I enjoy watching my favorite premier league team play at Anfield Road. A long weekend in this great city never disappoints, as there are some rather fine restaurants in this area!
This image was captured using an iPhone 11 Pro Max and the Neuralcam app. This app is great fro taking a night HDR shot; it just takes a steady hand (or a railing to anchor one’s hand).
Last I checked, I have taken at least 15,000 photos with my various iPhone versions over the years. While there are a lot of gratuitous snaps and recording of serial numbers among them, there’s a subset of images that I still like.
Here’s another one…
Too Snowy for Golf?
This shot was taken at the Wachusett Country Club in West Boylston on the last day of 2015. As I drive by it frequently, I stopped to take a look at the reflections of the Sun in the snow and its interplay with the glistening trees.
This shot was taken with an iPhone 5s and I toned the highlights down a bit and added a bit of sharpening and vignette to get a more pleasing image.
Over the years we gather a lot of pictures on our mobile phones (remember to back them up!), so it’s fun to look back and see what we have.
Here’s an image from April of 2020…
Floral Study
This is what happens when I sit at the table in my sister’s house in the Netherlands and have nothing much to do. If I remember correctly, I used one of the portrait settings that was available on the iPhone Photo app at that time to have stage light simulation on the flower. As it was in a black vase most of the background went to black nicely.
As I was thinking of what iPhone image might be an interesting pick, I looked for something that I shot around this time of year. Then I came across this one that I still enjoy seeing after 9 years…
Slice of the Season
After slicing some of the ice cream cake, the pattern on the knife in front of the cake caught my eye, and it almost begged to be photographed. What could I do?
I hope that you enjoy some ice cream cake with your favorite holiday meal this season!!
I’m confident that many of us have heard the statement ‘That must be a great camera’ when someone sees one of our images. And yes, my Canon EOS R5 is a fantastic camera, but I have a backup camera that is equally fantastic!
On a really rainy day in Iceland, it’s kind of interesting to take a quick shot with your mobile phone and see how it looks. Plus, the reason I take at least one shot wherever I do a shoot is that it provides location data, which can come in handy when you’re trying to remember the spelling of an Icelandic location.
Vatnajökull Glacier
After doing a shoot (see Vatnajökull and Jökulsárlón – part 1) to get some interesting images,I noticed a slightly different angle to take this shot with my iPhone. One of the cool features is that the logic in the camera app is very smart about balancing exposure and making clouds appear dramatic. To be honest, I really like this shot, as it presents a mood that fit the scene.
Jökulsárlón Lagoon
This shot was an impromptu capture, as it was raining pretty hard, making it a bit cumbersome to do another tripod-mounted camera setup (despite rain gear for the camera, it’s always a bit of struggle to deal with fogging, those pesky rain drops on a filter, etc.) . So I pulled my iPhone out of my dry pocket and took this low angle shot. The blue of the ice, drama of the clouds and rain drops on the water came across rather nicely.
Both images were processed using Luminar AI and touched up in Photoshop.
I look forward to hearing about the opportunities that your mobile phone has provided you to capture that special image.
Time for another submission to the 52 Week Smartphone Challenge by Khürt Williams. The theme for week 9 is ‘Mood’: “Your Artistic Inspiration this week is the mood you are feeling today. Take that mood and use it to create art.”
Liverpool – Albert Docks
This shot is from my sauntering through Liverpool after attending a fantastic match at Anfield between Liverpool and Tottenham. For this challenge, I did a B&W conversion using Luminar 4 (Blair Witch Look – Magical Forests by Albert Dros) and cleaning up in Photoshop.
Location: Albert Docks, Liverpool, UK. Shot with iPhone 11 ProMax using the NeuralCam app.
As I mentioned last week’s post, Khürt Williams start this awesome new photo challenge series, the 52 Week Smartphone Challenge, which is described in the link. The concept is fairly straightforward and inspired by the great quality cameras that are in smartphones these days: shoot something that goes with the them and pingback/tag it to have it show up under the challenge.
The second week’s theme is ‘Rule of Thirds’: “You already know what the Rule of Thirds is, now is the time to use it”
Holiday Lights Galore!
This photo is one that I shot over the last week, as kind of a drive-by image. My wife had mentioned that there was this awesome display on a side street. Well, we found it!! The big, bright red lights are flood lights for their mini-ice skating rink! I took this shot with my iPhone 11Pro Max using the NeuralCam app. This app has become one of my favorite photography tools!
Dutch goes the Photo! 